Exodus 32:4 Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
A calf is a young cow. I’m sure you’re familiar with cows since they live almost everywhere on Earth. You’ve likely seen a real cow, petted a cow, and maybe even milked a cow. When I was a kid we visited friends of ours in Michigan that ran a large dairy farm full of cows. Hundreds of cows. Cows are a pretty big deal in our culture. We spend a lot of money to feed and take care of cows so that we can get their milk, their beef, their leather, and their fat (called tallow – this is used to make all kinds of products that we use every day).
Yes, we love our cows, but we don’t usually worship our cows. But in Egypt, the people worshiped their cows. In fact, cow or calf worship was a pretty big deal. The Egyptians believed that Ptah, the creator god, took the form of a cow. This cow was called the Apis Bull. The Egyptians made idols of the Apis Bull and worshiped it.
And that is exactly what Moses’ brother, Aaron, did in Exodus 32 – Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf.
God had just rescued the Hebrews from Egypt. He humiliated their gods with the ten plagues (more on this tomorrow). In one of the plagues God even made all the cows in Egypt get sick. Lots of their cows died. Then, when God took Moses up on top of Mount Sinai for 40 days, the people got impatient. They didn’t like having an invisible God, so they convinced Aaron to create a god for them made out of gold. What did their god look like? A cow of course.
What Aaron and the Israelites did that day was a very sinful thing. It’s called idolatry. Idolatry means that we make something into a god that we can worship, or we make God into a thing that we can worship. Maybe you’re thinking, I’m sure glad we don’t make cow idols anymore.
Well that might be true, but we sure do make idols still, don’t we? We turn things into our savior. Aaron made a golden calf and then the people gave it credit for rescuing them – O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt! Make no mistake, we still do the same thing. We think that our popularity, or talents will save us. Or maybe it’s just stuff. Or playing video games. Or good grades. Whatever we think makes us important or lovable is an idol. Whatever we use to feel better or happy without giving credit to God is an idol.
Every other sin we commit started as the sin of idolatry. Every lie, every unkind word, every bad thought, EVERY sin comes from putting something, likely ourselves, above God. And that is exactly why Jesus had to come to us at Christmas time to save us from our idolatry. Jesus came to show us that HE is the one that rescues us. Jesus, not a cow, and not anything else brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, and Jesus is the one who brings us out of our sin and selfishness and into his love and forgiving grace. And when Jesus comes again, we will worship only him!
Questions: Can you think of something that might be an idol to you (something you put ahead of God or use to make you feel good instead of God). Why do you think Jesus is worth worshiping more than anything else?
TLICfamily 